Feb. 22, 2001
Stanford Head Coach Mike Montgomery
Opening Statement:
That was certainly not one of our better efforts. Washington State played awfully well, shooting 56 [percent] and 61 [percent] from three. We were not very aggressive in the first half and did not do very good job defensively. Our reaction to loose balls, boards - it wasn't what it needed to be. Washington State took advantage of that, and they shot the ball extremely well. Jerry McNair, who's off the bench, scores 29. That's certainly a credit to him and the job he did. He was on fire and we didn't do a very good job of getting him shut off. Needless to say, we had a little discussion at halftime about effort and where our heads were and what we needed to do, and we bounced back in the second half. The difference was night and day for our mental preparation, and it's something that we have a problem with, apparently - the mental side of what we have to do. We have to play hard to be good. We have to play aggressive defensively and everybody has to be tuned in. When we played Washington State last time, I thought Washington State played well. They did the same thing to us - point of attack, move the ball, quickness. We didn't have anybody really in the paint in the first half on the boards, but like the first game, they shot the ball better. The next time this happens, we're going to get beat and it's going to be unfortunate if we can't get ourselves ready to play. For whatever reason, we just weren't quite as ready. Please give credit to Washington State, they played extremely well. They lost [Mike] Bush and they didn't lose a beat. I think an indication of our aggressiveness was that we had three team fouls in the first half late in the second half we had four team fouls - we weren't making any effort to get after anybody, and that's usually an indicator of how aggressive you are. Washington State was relaxed, they didn't feel any pressure, they shot the ball extremely well. They had a guy that was on fire and they went to him and we had a hard time shutting him off. We cannot let that happen. Some how we have to learn to prepare ourselves mentally for games. I think we were feeling pretty self-satisfied coming off the Cal game and reading about ourselves and not remembering how we played well and what happened for us. We were probably lucky to get the win. In many respects, I think Washington State outplayed us. Fortunately, we had a few guys that stepped up. Mike McDonald in the first half, got us some loose balls and got us some shots. Casey [Jacobsen] passed the ball well. We didn't have very many guys playing at their peaks, so again give Washington State some credit. Shame on us. We can't let that happen again.
Q. Did you try to do anything specific to shut McNair out in the second half?
A. I tried isolating him. He's quick with the ball. Five for eight from three. We tried to deny him a little bit, but they kept running him and got him the ball. Obviously, from Washington State's perspective, they tried to shorten the game in the second half once they got up and had a chance, and that's smart. We did a pretty good job in some instances on him. When we substituted, we didn't have great results. We didn't have great effort off the bench. We had a period of time when we got up eleven and missed seven straight shots and they got back to two. Tony [Giovacchini]'s three was huge at that point. It could have been a turning point if we hadn't made that bucket to take it back to five and we substituted back. We've got to get better than that off the bench.
Q. What do you do to defend guards, especially McNair?
A. [McNair] was uncanny, Bush had 23 against us last time. They do a lot of point of attack, take it right at you type of stuff. We had post guys stepping up to help some, but they weren't stepping up high enough, they weren't stepping up aggressively enough. They were kind of just standing there and [McNair] dropped it off for buckets. If he's that good, watch out because that was a hell of a performance by McNair.
Q. It looked like this was a better defensive game than others, did you think so?
A. We tried to extend our defense out to the shooters. Again, you have to give credit to the shots they hit. They hit some really deep threes and they hit some late clock [shots]. They had some great drives to the basket. Their post guys were in some respects non-existent. It was their three perimeter guys and specifically [Marcus] Moore and McNair. I though tour effort to loose balls, our effort to go to the boards to get us out to the break was not very good - particularly in the first half - which led to some second shots. They were 7-for-10 from three in the first half and that shouldn't happen.
Q. Is there anything you can do differently in terms of mental preparation?
A. If this didn't shake them up, I don't know what will. Different school, different people - they give you different match-up problems, and we had the same match-up problem last time on this trip. Those kids don't panic, they pass the ball, they find the open guy, they're in no hurry. It's something they're going to have to learn. I can go into the locker room and rant and rave and pound my chest and artificially try to provide some intensity, and maybe I did that at halftime, but it seems to me that with this veteran club, that they have to have a better understanding of what we have to do to be successful. We didn't have that. We were loose today at shoot-around, and I just don't think that they thought Washington State could beat them. And boy were they dead wrong.
Q. What about the drop-off in bench play?
A. I said to them after the game that it's great when we're playing Cal and everything is clicking and everybody is doing great, and you guys come off the bench and add to a 20 point lead, but I need you when the starters aren't playing as well you'd like. Then I could put in a guy off the bench and he goes in and provides a lift for us. They were as bad if not worse than the starters in terms of their mental set. They thought, I'll go in and make a shot and then they'd take bad shots. Seven straight misses and Washington State got back in it.
Q. Obviously bench play is important...
A. Well, I have to substitute and keep some key people on the floor the al the time. I have to be careful of running rotations where all of a sudden we don't have Jarron [Collins] and Jason [Collins] or Ryan [Mendez] or Casey on the floor. Maybe that's not a good way to do it, I just need to substitute at key time with other people on the floor to give us stability.
Q. What was the difference that got Jarron and Jason and Justin [Davis] points in the second half?
A. They got more aggressive. The indicator that we didn't have any team fouls, but their big guys didn't have any fouls. Once again for [Milton] Riley and [J] Locklier to play 34, 37 minutes without getting in foul trouble. Locklier had two, so obviously we were not doing a good job being aggressive at the post and taking it in and scoring. It was just everybody. Everybody was just not mentally sharp. Jason was 1 of 5 with one rebound at the half, that's not been like Jason lately. We didn't do a very good job forcing them to defend and we didn't do a very aggressive job defending them.